McCaffery: Flyers playing catch-up

PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers were shoved out of last postseason by the New Jersey Devils, losing their last four games, seldom generating good shots. Their offense, and their program, was heading in the wrong direction. Their chairman, as it later was revealed, was a little sideways, too.

“We couldn’t adjust to New Jersey when they were bringing all their men back,” Ed Snider said. “We had three forwards on five players, and it is hard to score. So we have to adjust accordingly to make sure we’re up to date with what is going on around the league.”

Snider said that at the end of an offseason that lasted 113 days too long, tucking it into a pre-training-camp address to the press. He’d just turned 80, but that had nothing to do with his mood. He had little patience for coaches and players and rosters not maintaining the highest NHL standards when he was 79 or 50 or 42, which is how old he was the last time the Flyers won a Stanley Cup.

Since Snider’s comment was more accurate than accusatory and more analytical than antagonistic, it slid by, kind of like an iced puck late in a lopsided game. But it was out there, and it would stay out there. And it was out there Thursday when his Flyers rolled into the Wells Fargo Center on a seven-game losing streak, that trouble against the Devils included. An 0-3 start to the 2013 mini-season already had them going through the standard theater of promising not to point fingers. Once that happens, one of two things will happen: The healing will begin or somebody will be poked in the eye.

“It was a bad feeling,” Jakub Voracek said. “It was a tough start for us. Nobody expected us to go 0-and-3. We didn’t play well. But we knew we had to stick with it.”

The Flyers stuck with it early, late and then very late, defeating the New York Rangers, 2-1. They survived a 3-on-5 disadvantage, enjoyed crisp goaltending and made just enough shots to win at a time when they were running out of options.

The night began with Paul Holmgren revealing that Scott Hartnell would be out for up to eight weeks, and then with the general manager reacquiring Mike Knuble, 40, who’d scored six times in 72 games last season in Washington. Hey, Shea Weber still isn’t available. Neither is Danny Briere, who has a broken wrist.

“We’re looking around,” Holmgren said. “It’s a big loss because of how Scott plays the game. And to have him out any length of time — to be looking at a month, two months — it is a tough pill to swallow. But we’ll see what we can do.”

There is less time this season to look-and-see, which is why every game is important, every shift, too. The Flyers still haven’t scored in a first period, continuing a two-year habit of gulping early. But they held up strongly in front of Ilya Bryzgalov, who did what a max-contact goalie is supposed to do in a crisis — win the team a game, not simply keep it in one.

“The guys played unbelievable,” Bryzgalov said. “The team looked sharp. The guys made sacrifices, blocking the shots. Nobody was cheating. I can’t say enough words. It was a great game tonight.”

With Briere most likely for at least another weekend, and with Hartnell gone too, it’s the way the Flyers are going to have to play, protecting their net from the goalie out.

“I’m not concerned,” Snider said of Bryzgalov, before the season. “I think a lot of his problems have had to do with the different style we played as opposed to Phoenix. I really believe that we’ll tighten up a little bit to help him out and I think he’s a good goalie.”

That’s how it looked on a night when the Flyers sneered at the prospect of an 0-4 record, picked some fights, won at least one and improved to 1-3.

Some old Flyers hockey, and some new. Just another night of keeping up with what is going on around the league.